It's unclear how the currently proposed Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 §503-512 will addresses any fundamental issues related to our dysfunctional and baleful system for classification of information (e.g. erosion of credibility, integrity, transparency, and democratic governance etc.).

In fact many of the proposed sections may have the fortunate, but unintended effect of increasing leaks as our dysfunctional and baleful system for classification continues eroding credibility, integrity, transparency and democratic governance.

Some of the sections border on the comic and absurd, like requiring those responsible for our dysfunctional and baleful system for classification to provide:

"...(3) a description of actions that could be taken to address improper classification of material."

Senator Feinstein likely means well...she may think she's the first to make this request or attempt to reform our completely dysfunctional and baleful system of classification?

"Not later than 365 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Director of National Information Declassification shall declassify all classified information held by the United States of America and publicly publish same on Wikileaks-like or equivalent platforms."

Our newly created National Information Declassification Agency can oversea our speedy transition (no reason to take two decades and untold leak prosecutions) to transparent democratic governance, plus address the bazillion pleas of "this cannot possibly be declassified because [fill in the most harrowing story you can imagine]".

"...To conclude, representative government requires transparency. It is a paramount value in democratic systems if there is to be government of, by, and for the people. As the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States declares, it is “We the People” who constitute the nation’s ultimate sovereign authority...."--A Perspective On Secrecy--

Those equating national security with secrecy diminish our constitution at best and subvert it at worst.

Therefore, we must reject efforts to substitute government national security with secrecy for transparency and demand that our government continuously transition toward total transparent governance, with all diligent speed.

Thereafter, our debate can focus on solving the problems and concerns, which impede or slow the transition—not on whether transparent governance can generate existential threats.

National Intelligence University, Who Watches the Watchmen? is a Wikileaks white paper of sorts. Who Watches the Watchmen (W3) explores the plethora of past leaks to advance a thesis that rational choice theory may be useful in reducing the perceived harm resulting from an assumed conflict between national security and freedom of the press.

Unfortunately, W3 suffers from failing to first address the fundamental question of whether secrecy or transparency is a superior method for sustaining orderly, responsible, stable, secure and modern civil societies. W3 simply asserts axiomatically the superiority of secrecy, assigns some perceived harm to the leak(s) and then proceeds to apply rational choice theory to mitigate that harm.

W3 is neither original nor rigorous and suffers from drinking its own Kool-Aid. That said, the nascent efforts of our National Intelligence University to rigorously study secrecy, transparency and national security is urgently needed and most welcomed.

When examined rigorously national security, freedom of the press and transparency may be synonymous. If so, Wikileaks platforms are an optimal solution for every orderly, responsible, stable, secure and modern civil society.

"...And during the Cold War, as
Americans were whipped up to frenzy of fear of the “Red Menace,”
loyalty programs, political infiltration, blacklisting, legislative
investigations, and criminal prosecutions of supposed Communist
“subversives” and sympathizers swept the nation. Over time, we
have come to understand that these episodes from our past were
grievous errors in judgment in which we allowed fear and anxiety to
override our good judgment and our essential commitment to
individual liberty and democratic self-governance. Over time, we
have come to understand that, in order to maintain a robust system
of democratic self-governance, our government cannot
constitutionally be empowered to punish speakers, even in the name
of “national security” without a compelling
justification."--Statement of Geoffrey R. Stone-- (footnotes
excluded)

Our
talented and capable Secretary of State significantly overstates the
case against transparency—transparency "attacks"
nothing...

Our
Secretary sets the bar too low when implying that transparency is
only necessary to expose [government] wrongdoings or misdeeds.

Transparency
is necessary to ensure responsible government—when coupled with an
accurately informed and engaged citizenry it then becomes sufficient
for ensuring responsible government.

As
transparency becomes our default for all responsible governments,
including diplomatic functions, expressions of "great concern",
such as that expressed by our Secretary will apply to opaqueness
instead of transparency2.

UPDATED 10/24/2011Wikileaks focuses on raising funds with a spoof and description of its very important and next generation mission:

Our government's opaque logic is difficult to understand. Is our government asserting individuals cannot be transparently governed? Or that it is incapable of transparent governance? Or that individuals must be transparent with respect to their government instead of their government transparent with respect to those individuals?

UPDATED 04/12/2011

"...Today
something has changed, reality is no longer what governments and
their echoes in the media say it is. Of all the spectacular revolts
across the world, the most exciting and hopeful is the insurrection
of knowledge. Much of it sparked by Wikileaks...."--John
Pilger, Sydney
Peace Foundation Forum--

It's not without significance that our own nation has "leaked" from its very beginning. John Jay, our first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Justice returned
with the newly negotiated treaty of peace with England, known as
the Jay
Treaty

The treaty caused no small controversy between the Federalist and
Republican factions of our nascent nation. President Washington
sought to keep the Jay Treaty secret while his Federalist faction
obtained senate ratification. The Jay Treaty was leaked to the media
and promptly printed. Treaty proponents (Federalists) hurled
allegations of anti-patriotism at opponents calling for the
revocation of their American citizenship and deportation. Treaty
opponents (Republicans) hurled charges of counter-revolution and
secret monarchist cabals at proponents.

UPDATED
12/09/2010 Democracy
Now's
Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald discuss the strange Swedish sex saga
and Interpol's atypical use of its most wanted list to aid Swedish
questioning of Assange; some are speculating that the
Swedish-Interpol sex saga is nothing more than a political prelude to
fig leaf rendition and Guantánmozation of press, speech, and
dissent. Democracy
Now,
from December
07, 2010 Transcript,
Glenn Greenwald6 (9:04):

"...Well, I just want to
underscore how alarming everything is that you just described, both
in that report and in your earlier one, which is, whatever you think
of WikiLeaks, they’ve never been charged with a crime, let alone
indicted or convicted. And yet, look at what has happened to them.
They’ve been essentially removed from the internet, not just
through a denial of service attacks that are very sophisticated, but
through political pressure applied to numerous countries. Their
funds have been frozen, including funds donated by people around the
world for his—for Julian Assange’s defense fund and for
WikiLeaks’s defense fund. They’ve had their access to all kinds
of accounts cut off. Leading politicians and media figures have
called for their assassination, their murder, to be labeled a
terrorist organization. What’s really going on here is a war over
control of the internet and whether or not the internet can actually
serve what a lot of people hoped its ultimate purpose was, which was
to allow citizens to band together and democratize the checks on the
world’s most powerful factions. That’s what this really is
about. It’s why you see Western government, totally lawlessly,
waging what can only be described as a war on WikiLeaks and Julian
Assange outside the bounds of any constraints, because that’s what
really is at stake here. If they want to prosecute them, they should
go to court and do it through legal means. But this extralegal
persecution ought to be very alarming to every citizen in every one
of these countries, because it essentially is pure authoritarianism
and is designed to prevent the internet from being used as its
ultimate promise, which is providing a check on unconstrained
political power...."--Glenn Greenwald--

Aftergood makes the obvious point that neither Afshar nor Fitzgibbon is applicable when the public domain document is a mirror image of the document the government seeks to withhold—stated differently the document is self-authenticating, without government involvement.

Additionally, neither Afshar nor Fitzgibbon seem robust enough for today's cyber environment. For example suppose Iran intercepts an RQ-170 Sentinel drone and posts a video of the drone to the Internet, does the drone's reduced angles shape remain classified? How about if the talented Iranians reverse engineer the drone and publish the detailed drawings? How about when China downloads the Iranian's drone drawings, builds, and offers for sale the "personal RQ-170p drone kit"? How about when an American buys a personal RQ-170p drone kit and uses it to track the authorities?; publish online traffic reports?; produce surveillance reports? etc.

UPDATED
06/19/2011 FAS
Secrecy, Govt Opposes Attorneys’ Free Use of WikiLeaks Documents.
Publicly leaked classified documents are not authentic until we say
they are, so says our government. The most disappointing aspect of
the above assertion is not the lack of objective evidence supporting
its accuracy—the impacts of leaked documents are often independent
of any government authenticity or inauthenticity acknowledgement or
even awareness. More disappointing is the implicit premise underlying
our government's assertion—continued opaque governance10.

"As a historical matter,
government overreaction to publication of leaked material in the
press has always been more damaging to American democracy than the
leaks themselves."--Columbia University Graduate School of
Journalism faculty members and officers signing letter--

It's unclear why our leadership is so
eager to surrender our nation's strategic, comparative, and
competitive advantage in the transparent press, speech, association,
and dissent space. Transparent press, speech, association, and
dissent space are vital for the future stability and growth of all
nations. We must use the current Wikileaks disclosures and any
future disclosures to teach (by example) other nations how to govern
with maximum government transparency. Leak prosecutions are
inconsistent with this objective or maximum government transparency.

Our government's unmeasured and unconstrained psychotic pursuit of secret surveillance initiatives undermines and threatens both our democracy and its foundational First Amendment.

Only after the intervention of a courageous young whistleblower, competitive China and cantankerous Russia has some of our government's representatives begun to acknowledge that our government's secret surveillance initiatives require constraints.

Our government representative's acknowledgement that our its secret surveillance initiatives require constraints is a good beginning. However, the required constraints must be coupled with government transparency, but that will require the intervention of our increasingly concerned citizenry.

It's speculative and highly prejudicial for the court to permit the prosecutor to associate information on a Bin Laden compound computer, the leaker (defendant), and an assumed Wikileaks source—it seems more indicative of a cheap ploy to imply guilt by association.

On the positive side the required association implies a "harm requirement", which may presage an impossibly high bar for the prosecutor to surmount requiring the dropping or acquittal of the (over|mis)charges.

Unfortunately our leakers must sometimes await history to confound the "harm" (some might say harmful) pronouncements of our secrecy proponents and prognosticators—in the meantime it will be helpful for our government to ceases its prosecution of leakers and move with all diligent speed to totally transparent governance.

The article is not particularly insightful and certainly not the quality one expects and often reads in Foreign Policy.

All articles on Wikileaks can assume or stipulated: that Wikileaks has focused on our government; that our government is not currently appreciative of Wikileaks or Assange's efforts; that other governments often are not appreciative of some actions taken by our government; that most governments will typically prefer to push back rather than publicly explain its private activity; and that Wikileaks and Wikileaks-like platforms can always improve their publishing functions.

OK, now begin your article here. An individual with the capacity and courage to resist and endure the onslaught of government push back is rare and by definition interesting, whether you agree with or support that individual.

Our democracy, government transparency and speech rights will not improve by chanting condemnation of those working to improve all three.

It's easy to forget that all the extraordinary governmental hysteria, maneuvering and hyperbole is about asking an individual some questions related to his sexual activity.

It's as if our Secret Service instead of flying down and talking to the Colombian prostitutes about their activity with those responsible for guarding President Obama, which they wisely did, instead: called Interpol for a "Red Alert" on the prostitutes; requested Columbia to hold and extradite the prostitutes; took to the media to denounce the prostitutes and prostitution as threats to our national security; forbid all their agents from reading press accounts of the scandal; and inquired of DOJ about charging the prostitutes with espionage!

Interesting recall of the judge's query over the scope of provision she enjoined,
§1021, National Defense Authorization Act.

"In issuing her ruling, the judge said she was worried by the government's reluctance at a March hearing to say whether examples of the plaintiffs' activities - such as aiding the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks in the case of Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of parliament in Iceland - would fall under the scope of the provision."

Whatever the interpretation given to the phrase "judicial authority" in international treaties it must not moot due process by equating or conflating "judicial authority" with "prosecutorial authority".

Hopefully, any rehearing on reopening will ensure judicial and prosecutorial authority are not conflated or equated.

UPDATED
07/09/2011 Reuters,
Exclusive: WikiLeaks loses Icelandic financial lifeline.
WoW that was fast! The basis for this potentially harmful corporate
coordination denying access to international financial clearing
entities remains unclear? The corporate coordination becomes baleful
if it's discovered that our government is directly or indirectly or
officially or unofficially extra judicially involved in trying to
extinguish that which criticizes or decries it. Often the
coordination is the result of subtle government actions: a private
phone call; lunch discussion; a question about the value of
government contracts; patriotic appeal; contract cancellation or
award to competitor; declining an interview; denying access; arrest
and perp walk; press conference explicitly or implicitly
communicating government displeasure; etc.

UPDATED
02/29/2011 NYT,
Detainees’ Lawyers Can’t Click on Leaked Documents.
Wonder if a detainees'
lawyers can enjoy a cup of coffee while listening to
an uncleanuncleared
lawyer read the leaked documents aloud? One wonders how effective any
lawyer is if our government has the ability to proscribe access to
information, any information? Shouldn't our government's
responsibility be to ensure access to information? Presumably the
"cleared" detainees' defense lawyers could be "read
in" to the relevant programs governing the documents our
government is pretending are still classified? In any event our
government's decision to pretend that leaked Wikileaks documents are
still classified may provide more comic entertainment than the
recently replaced color coded threat level system.

UPDATED
02/07/2011 NPR,
Professors Differ On Ethics Of Using WikiLeaks Cables.
It seems short sighted and illogical for a professor of the
diplomatic arts to deprive our future Georgetown University
diplomatic students of any benefit from the Wikileaks cables because
of a personal belief that a diplomatic cable is stolen. Let's assume
for the sake of argument that a stolen diplomatic cable should not be
used, as Georgetown University Professor Marc Grossman asserts. Such
an assertion significantly blinds our nation's talented diplomats (as
demonstrated by some Wikileaks cables) and by extension our
policymakers, both of whom routinely consume stolen diplomatic cable
traffic.

UPDATED
01/09/2011 Guardian,
Iceland summons US envoy over demand for MP's Twitter details.
In addition to First Amendment speech and press rights the subpoena
implicates association rights with nothing more than a simple
government assertion that relevant information is sought. Social
networking sites like Twitter®, Facebook®, and Google®
collect comprehensive time-series link data, which reveal
associations when analyzed with modern software tools.

"Internet freedom 'has always
coexisted with the rule of law' and 'does not mean that the Internet
can be used to harm others,'”--NYT quoting State Department
spokesperson P.J. Crowley--

It's not unusual for authoritarian
regimes or democratic governments behaving in an authoritarian
manner to conflate or commingle "rule-of-law" with
"rule-by-law". It's often the case that those attempting
to apply rule-by-law will use disjointed and non-sequitur logic
like:

"X has always coexisted with the
rule-of-law;that does not mean you can do Y."

Of
course, all attempts to commingle or conflate rule-of-law with
rule-by-law must be subjected to heightened scrutiny. This is
particularly so when such commingling or conflation occurs in the
context of the conduct of war where rule-of-law is most in jeopardy.
[* Thesubpoena (courtesy
of Salon) was issued by Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria
Division and required only a simple assertion that relevant
information was sought. In the absence of traditional judicial
oversight under the heightened probable cause standard the need for
transparency is great. It does not speak well of our government that
when the need for transparency is great it seeks greater
opaqueness.]

UPDATED
01/08/2011 Guardian,
WikiLeaks demands Google and Facebook unseal US subpoenasandBBC,
US wants Twitter details of Wikileaks activists.
Shifting governments away from their opaque ways will require more
that Wikileaks or Twitter, but all substantive shifts or changes
begin with just one individual. The substantive shifts or changes
will always generate strong push back in proportion to its
substance—no push back, no change of substance. We are fortunate
that there are individuals capable of enduring the push back—without
them shifts and changes would be much slower or not occur. How
wonderful that it's our modern social networks leading the
substantive shift to government transparency.

"...The volume of the leaks is
unprecedented, yet the leaking and publication of diplomatic
correspondence is not new. We, as editors and news directors of
major media organisations, believe the reaction of the US and
Australian governments to date has been deeply troubling. We will
strongly resist any attempts to make the publication of these or
similar documents illegal. Any such action would impact not only on
WikiLeaks, but every media organisation in the world that aims to
inform the public about decisions made on their behalf. WikiLeaks,
just four years old, is part of the media and deserves our support.
...It is the media’s duty to responsibly report such material if
it comes into their possession. To aggressively attempt to shut
WikiLeaks down, to threaten to prosecute those who publish official
leaks, and to pressure companies to cease doing commercial business
with WikiLeaks, is a serious threat to democracy, which relies on a
free and fearless press."--Signers Walkley Foundation Open
Letter Re: Wikileaks--

"My
convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have
expressed. This circumstance shall not shake them....If anything
this process has increased my determination that they are true and
correct....We now know that Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and others are
instruments of US foreign policy,....It's not something we knew
before....I am calling for the world to protect my work and my
people from these illegal and immoral attacks....As a mother, I'm
asking the world to stand up for my brave son."--Australia's
7News and Sunshine
Coast Daily quoting
Ms. Assange quoting her son's statement from a British jail and her
reaction to his statement--

UPDATED
12/11/2010 NPR,
WikiLeaks' Payment Processor To Sue Card Companies.
It's of course shocking and of concern when any private corporation
interferes with citizens' press, speech, or association rights based
on government hysteria (has the hysteria driven Iraq and Afghanistan
War debacles taught us nothing). Our private corporations should not
be able to do on behalf of our government7 what our
government cannot do itself, assertions of State Secrets
notwithstanding. Perhaps a lawsuit can explore whether Visa®,
MasterCard®, et al's actions can or should be imputed to our
government, then seek class status on behalf of those whose
constitutional rights have been trampled in the hysteria?

"WikiLeaks is operational. We are
continuing on the same track as laid out before. Any development
with regards to Julian Assange will not change the plans we have
with regards to the releases today and in the coming
days."--Guardian quoting WikiLeaks spokesman, Kristinn
Hrafnsson--

"I make no judgment of Julian
Assange as an individual as I have never met him. I am offering my
support to him as I believe in the universal right to freedom of
information and our right to be told the truth."--Guardian
quoting Socialite and Charity Fundraiser Jemima Khan--

"I think the work he has done has
been a public service. I think we are entitled to know the dealings
of those that govern us."--Guardian quoting film-maker Ken
Loach--

UPDATED
12/04/2010 CSM,
For Europe, WikiLeaks offers cyberdrama with Julian Assange as main
character.
To date, disclosures of the diplomatic traffic indicates minimal or
no effort to balance secrecy in the democratic space (this of course
is no secret for our secrecy system specialists—they've been
arguing our democracy is drowning in secrecy for years). Moreover,
the diplomatic traffic indicates a wide margin from any supposed
Hannah Arendt imbalance, should such exist. Finally, that the current
diplomatic traffic transparency is perceived as "radical"4 is
also an indicator of how wide the imbalance margin is!

1.
A person-citizen with access to Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's
Wars has
the opportunity to inform themselves with respect to our leader's
motivations, frustrations, and decisions concerning the Afghanistan
War debacle. Is such an informed person-citizen more or less of a
benefit to our nation? Does your answer change because Woodward's
book contains information marked "SECRET/NOFORN" or
transparency embarrasses opaqueness?

4. Encouragingly,
those reporting or following current events tend to view the
disclosed diplomatic traffic as little more than confirmation of
what has already been suspected or known. Some have even suggested
updating the "Batman and Robin" metaphor with a more
imaginative metaphor. ...And who knew that the Kadafi
voluptuous-blond-nurse traffic would be the most popular traffic or
that some of our leaders would make the routine prediction of lack
of future candidness?

5.
UPDATED 12/04/2010 The Washington Times's motivation for publishing
an extremist's editorial calling
for the assassination of Julian Assange is unclear. Many Americans
expect the debate over government transparency to be intense; most
do not expect an American newspaper to print fatwas.

6.
Democracy Now also hosted an informative
discussion between
Glenn Greenwald and Steven Aftergood on transparency.

7.
UPDATED 12/11/2010 Reuters is
reporting that
Attorney General Holder, during a San Francisco fraud conference,
stated "We have not pressured anybody to do anything,"
with respect to Wikileaks.

8.
Aftenposten is
also reporting that
between 2007 and 2009 the Swedish company ÅF Colenco secretly
helped Iran design a 360 MW light water reactor. This activity may
have violated UN sanctions. The design and support help has since
stopped. According to Aftenposten companies from Russia, Pakistan,
Syria, France, Italy, Macedonia, Armenia and the Emirates may have
engaged in activity that violated UN sanction, too.

9. FAS Secrecy
Blog has updated its original post to state that the AFMC Wikileaks
"guidance" has been withdrawn.

10.
It's hazardous to draw conclusions about governance from argument(s)
made in legal cases—particularly cases asserting the buzz words
"national security". However, over the years our
government has erected a complex opaque behemoth that it uses to
govern—voluntarily or involuntarily dismantling this complex
opaque behemoth will not be easy, speedy, or without benefits and
burdens. Nevertheless, as data leaks from the closed to open set of
books even the most uninformed citizen understands that meaningful
participation in our democracy requires one set of transparent
books. Fortunately, there are some data to suggest that our
government (and others) understand their transparent future, if not
the bulk transition pace of Wikileaks.